Anthrax toxin silences immune cells’ alarm call

INVASIONS are much easier if you knock out your enemy’s communication system. And it turns out that this is what anthrax has been doing for millions of years.

The discovery explains why people infected by breathing in anthrax spores don’t develop symptoms for several days. By the time they are diagnosed, it’s often too late to save them.

Researchers already know that macrophages, white blood cells that normally destroy bacteria, engulf spores in the lungs. But the tough spores not only survive the onslaught, they begin to multiply. The macrophages, carry their deadly cargo around the body, …

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